In a note on the allied Sunris or Sundis of Bengal, Mr. Risley writes [186] that "according to Hindu ideas, distillers and sellers of strong drink rank among the most degraded castes, and a curious story in the Vaivarta Purana keeps alive the memory of their degradation. It is said that when Sani, the Hindu Saturn, failed to adapt an elephant's head to the mutilated trunk of Ganesa, who had been accidentally beheaded by Siva, Viswakarma, the celestial artificer, was sent for, and by careful dissection and manipulation he fitted the incongruous parts together, and made a man called Kedara Sena from the slices cut off in fashioning his work. This Kedara Sena was ordered to fetch a drink of water for Bhagavati, weary and athirst. Finding on the river's bank a shell full of water, he presented it to her, without noticing that a few grains of rice left in it by a parrot had fermented and formed an intoxicating liquid. Bhagavati, as soon as she had drunk, became aware of the fact, and in her anger condemned the offender to the vile and servile occupation of making spirituous liquor for mankind. Another story traces their origin to a certain Bhaskar or Bhaskar Muni, who was created by Krishna's brother, Balaram, to minister to his desire for strong drink. A different version of the same legend gives them for ancestor Niranjan, a boy found by Bhaskar floating down a river in a pot full of country liquor, and brought up by him as a distiller." For the following note on the Sondis of Vizagapatam, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. According to a current tradition, there was, in days of old, a Brahman, who was celebrated for his magical powers. The king, his patron, asked him if he could make the water in a tank (pond) burn, and he replied in the affirmative. He was, however, in reality disconsolate, because he did not know how to do it. By chance he met a distiller, who asked him why he looked so troubled, and, on learning his difficulty, promised to help him on condition that he gave him his daughter in marriage. To this the Brahman consented. The distiller gave him a quantity of liquor to pour into the tank, and told him to set it alight in the presence of the king. The Brahman kept his word, and the Sondis are the descendants of the offspring of his daughter and the distiller. The caste is divided into several endogamous divisions, viz., Bodo Odiya, Madhya kula, and Sanno kula. The last is said to be made up of illegitimate descendants of the two first divisions. The Sondis distil liquor from the ippa (Bassia) flower, rice, and jaggery (crude sugar). There is a tradition that Brahma created the world, and pinched up from a point between his eyebrows a little mud, from which he made a figure, and endowed it with life. Thus Suka Muni was created, and authorised to distil spirit from the ippa flowers, which had hitherto been eaten by birds.